EMD Serono to joins the biotech crowd in Kendall Square

Rockland company will open a research lab in Cambridge’s biotechnology hub as it accelerates the pace of its hiring.

By Jon Chesto

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Jon Chesto

Posted Mar. 31, 2009 at 12:01 AM
Updated Mar 31, 2009 at 6:31 PM

By Jon Chesto

Posted Mar. 31, 2009 at 12:01 AM
Updated Mar 31, 2009 at 6:31 PM

ROCKLAND

» Social News

EMD Serono is opening a research lab in Cambridge’s Kendall Square where nearly 50 of the Rockland biotech company’s scientists will work while the company waits for its Billerica expansion to be completed.

EMD Serono had planned to add as many as 100 new jobs to its Massachusetts work force as part of the Billerica expansion. Steve Arkinstall, EMD Serono’s head of research, said the company is accelerating its hiring of those scientists and doesn’t want to wait until the Billerica complex is done before hiring them. He said there is no room at the Rockland headquarters for additional lab space.

Arkinstall said the 50 EMD Serono scientists who will work in Cambridge’s biotechnology hub will be a mix of new hires and researchers who will be relocated from Billerica or Rockland. The scientists will focus on treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

Arkinstall said he expects Serono will open the 18,000-square-foot lab at One Kendall Square in May, and will probably use it for up to three years before all the scientists are transferred to Billerica. He expects the 125,000-square-foot addition to the company’s Billerica plant to be finished by the end of 2011, although he said construction hasn’t begun yet.

EMD Serono’s parent company, Germany’s Merck KGaA, has made investing in treatments for MS and Parkinson’s a priority, Arkinstall said. Arkinstall said Merck views the Boston area as the best place to make those investments because of the diverse pool of scientists and the amount of research that gets done here.

“There are a lot of good, talented people in the Boston area, which was a large component in our initial decision to invest in neurodegenerative research in the Boston area,” he said.

Robert Coughlin, CEO of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, said it’s a promising sign that EMD Serono is accelerating the pace of its hiring amid a severe recession.

Coughlin, whose office is in Kendall Square, said that Cambridge will remain a key industry center even as some major players in the state’s biotech industry move employees to less expensive real estate in the suburbs. “You’re always going to see a concentration of innovation around the academic institutions and teaching hospitals in the Boston-Cambridge area,” Coughlin said.